Food Journal #6

I think that Michael Pollan makes a very good point that we do not have a set food identity as a culture, like the French do with pastries, escargot, bread and cheeses. Or the Italians with pasta. We do not really have foods other than hotdogs and hamburgers associated with our nation. What i think is important to recognize is that America is made up of many different cultures making 'American food' something which is more of an idea than an actual type of food.

In class Andy brought up a point which I felt was very true, that food is more regional than national. The example was India, and how the Indian food we eat in America is really food from a specific region of India such as Bombay, or New Delhi. For America I think this is just as true. In the south, spicy 'cajun' food is eaten. In Texas, people eat more meaty, barbeque flavored foods, and in the cities, like New York, we eat just about everything in a culinary 'melting pot' of foods from every culture.

What we do have in America, is an obsession with our eating habits that no other country in the world seems to have. This is probably attributed to the fact that America is one of the most obese nations in the world. We have made certain ingredients literally illegal, such as trans fats, which were used in about every fast food restaurant in America. We also have a variety in the food we eat greater than virtually any other culture, because we incorporate all other cultures foods into the American food pallet. This variety I think is partly why we have such an obese society. In France, a large part of the food they eat is heavily flavored and prepared to the point that Americans would consider it unhealthy, but they eat basically the same things all their lives, and are far healthier than we are. In America, a large portion of the population tries to eat 'healthy' or adhere to a strict 'diet', but we eat different foods from different parts of the world, meaning we don't really have a regulated diet at all in our country.

If I were to make an educated guess on why America is so unhealthy, and why we have such a food obsession, than I would attribute that to the variety we have in America and the fact that our food does not always come from our region of the world. I think that if we ate more natural food from right here in America, and indulged rarely in Chinese, Mexican, Italian or Thai food, than we would be much healthier, and on par with the Chinese who eat Chinese food, the Mexicans who eat Mexican food, and the Italians who eat Italian food.